This is an English translation of the original Japanese article.
Thank you for clicking on the MedPeer page. I am Kaoru Hotate, a member of the kakari development team at MedPeer. We strive every day to improve the way in which people go to hospital, see a physician, and get medicine at a pharmacy. This article provides a glimpse into how engineers work at MedPeer, while also describing some of the issues that healthcare facilities and pharmacies currently face and some background as to why we need kakari service. I hope that you will find the information throughout this article beneficial.
What is kakari?
kakari is a family pharmacy app linking patients to their regular pharmacy.
After you have seen a physician at a clinic or hospital, you bring your prescription to a pharmacy to get medicine. Having had to wait to see your doctor, you are already exhausted. Even though you want to get home as soon as possible, you have to wait once again at the pharmacy. Have you ever thought, “This is what is so troublesome about seeking medical care”? Recently, I had to visit the dermatologist. Despite the state-of-emergency declaration, the waiting room at the nearby pharmacy where I went to get medicine was full, and I was asked to wait outside. It would be even more distressing to wait outside if the weather were bad or I had hay fever or other severe symptoms. Many people probably also recall experiencing such inconveniences when visiting a healthcare center or pharmacy. kakari is an attempt to remedy these drawbacks. If your pharmacy is a kakari member, then such inconveniences will be alleviated and you will be able to make more convenient use of your regular pharmacy with greater peace of mind.
kakari offers the following services.
Advance prescription transmission
By taking a photo of the prescription and sending it in advance, the pharmacy will contact you once your prescription is filled. You can reduce your wait time by going to the pharmacy after receiving this notification.
Chat feature
The app has a chat feature making it convenient to consult your pharmacist at any time when, say, you forgot something she told you about the medicine or you later remember a question and want to ask the pharmacist. The app also supports online video calls as well.
Electronic medicine handbook
Paper medicine handbooks are no longer necessary! The app also eliminates the need to input any information. You can import all the information about your medicine just by scanning the QR code issued by the pharmacy.
2. kakari issues
By the way, have you heard about services like kakari that send a copy of your prescription in advance to the pharmacy and offers a service allowing you to consult your pharmacist either by text or video call? Have you also used such a service?
As of June 2021, kakari had been downloaded more than 300,000 times and registered 1,795 member pharmacies. The number of pharmacies using kakari service continues to increase. Nevertheless, the kakari service team is looking toward the future when even more people will be using the app. The younger generation, which has less interaction with medical services in comparison to the older age bracket, has not really taken notice of kakari or other such healthcare services. One of the first issues that kakari needs to address is familiarizing people with these types of healthcare services. Another issue is to increase the number of member pharmacies so that even more patients will be able to make use of kakari at the pharmacy where they usually get their prescriptions filled.
The pandemic has heightened interest in the medical profession and once again revealed many legacy components. For example, the facsimile is an essential part of pharmacy operations today. However, people who don’t know the reason for fax machines might be wondering why documents have to be faxed in this modern era where so much advanced technology is available. Taking into account such sentiments, online medical consultations are now available and insurance cards can be linked to “My Number” cards. These and other services have been rolled out recently. Many features have been devised that are about to be made available. We have also approached to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare as well as pharmacist associations and proposed new features based on comments voiced by the patients we see every day. People tend to think that huge industries like healthcare are difficult to change, but more and more things are now possible as laws and regulations have been eased. I believe there are areas where significant room exists for developing and adopting such services. If you are interested in planning services, not to mention creating something of use to people and society or you would like to make something new that helps people and our community, then I, personally, recommend the healthcare industry highly.
3. How the kakari team works
This section provides a glimpse into how our engineers actually go about their jobs. Responsibilities and operations are divided up among kakari team members so that, to the extent feasible, they are able to commit to what they want to do and are good at. The kakari team has 10 full-time permanent engineers. Two engineers serve as project managers, having taken an interest in planning and requirement definition, yet they also perform development tasks at the same time. As project managers are originally engineers, they have the faculty to discuss requirements while also considering data lifecycle and API definitions. They make it easier for other engineers to perform their jobs. Also, engineers interested in team management are assigned management responsibilities little by little starting at an early stage in their careers even though they do not have much engineering experience. There are also engineers who are not ordinarily assigned many development tasks and focus their energy on improving performance, alleviating technical debt, and improving development experience.
Despite the many different types of engineers, some are very sensitive to business and service, others to team development, and still others to technology. We truly make an effort to focus as much as possible on what each individual wants to do and make use of his or her strengths so that we may achieve a high level of performance even with a few number of people.
4. MedPeer’s culture
Lastly, I would like to explain why kakari team members are assigned responsibilities and operations in line with their career plans. MedPeer established a set of guidelines that govern our conduct, known as our Credo.
In line with our Credo, MedPeer looks for people who don’t just perform the engineering work they have been given, but look at issues, which the team faces, as their own problems (a “we” consciousness) and take initiative when performing their work (they do not mind sticking out and clashing with others in a constructive manner). In the case of Android engineers, we recommend team members take action to do what is necessary for the team and the company in a manner that goes beyond their development tasks. We want people who will not just develop the requirements or design that they have been given, but make proposals for better UI/UX, measure the extent of such effect, and share the knowledge they have gained from their team with other teams and even outside the company. The kakari team engineers also share with their team what sort of parts where they would like to “stand out.” This is true not just among engineers, but division managers also do their best to understand what each and every engineer wants to do and if they have changed their mind about something. A good facet of our corporate conduct guidelines is that we take action to facilitate ways in which our team members perform their jobs so that it is in line with their career plan.
In closing
As mentioned earlier in this article, I believe healthcare is a very interesting industry that is undergoing change. Many services are coming out that make use of IT, and I hope readers take a little more interest in the healthcare industry. MedPeer is also hiring Android engineers. If you are interested, please allow us an opportunity to talk with you, even casually.
kakari team members (Kaoru Hotate on the left)
Tech blog and career information
MedPeer is actively building up our organizational culture encompassing engineers as well as expanding the development technology that we use.
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About the author
Kaoru Hotate
Kaoru Hotate joined MedPeer in March 2017 after working as a server-side engineer for a financial services firm. Since 2018, he has also been involved in mobile app development. Currently, he works developing Android apps and is involved in developing the company’s primary care platform business as the development group leader.
